A bill that made its way through the legislature in the past week was discussed in the House of Representatives.

District 23 House Representative Ray Sorensen says that House File 2657 tightens and clarifies what counts as an Iowa resident for the purposes of hunting and fishing licenses. He tells Raccoon Valley Radio the goal behind it.

“This bill tries to create a more objective standard by tying residency to whether someone is filing taxes in Iowa. That helps prevent people from claiming resident status without really having ties to the state.”

Sorensen mentions that this allows for verification through the Iowa Department of Natural Resources limited to status, not full records, and aims to prevent individuals from claiming resident status without any true ties to the state. He adds that this is a bill that needed to be constructed carefully to make sure it didn’t unintentionally impact legitimate Iowans.